LIFE SCIENCES PENNSYLVANIA - 2025 second_quarter · Congress.wiki

LIFE SCIENCES PENNSYLVANIA - 2025 second_quarter · Congress.wiki

Science/TechnologyView all

Pennsylvania is a global leader in researching and developing new therapies, devices and diagnostics that help patients live longer, healthier lives. This innovation is due in part to the policy and regulatory ecosystem we enjoy in the United States. In 2023, Pennsylvania research institutions and small companies received more than $2 billion in NIH funding. This critical funding provides our ecosystem with foundational resources for biomedical innovation. It is complemented by significant private funding necessary to advance basic scientific research into safe, usable, and effective medicines. In fact, a 2022 report found that [private]industry accounts for nearly two-thirds of U.S. medical and health investment in R&D and the Federal government investment accounts for one-quarter (25%) of all U.S. medical and health R&D As a critical component of this ecosystem, it is essential we continue to expand support for the National Institutes of Health to ensure the United States - and Pennsylvania - remain a global leader in researching and developing new therapies, cures, and technologies that help patients live longer, healthier lives. Life Sciences PA supports a robust NIH budget as well as opportunities for Pennsylvania to maintain its leadership role with continued collaborative grant support including the DOD, EDA and NSF. Specifically, we encourage our membership to contact their members of Congress through our Advocacy Action Center regarding the newly announced 15% indirect cost rate that immediately applies to all new and existing NIH grants. The NIH is the leading investor worldwide in basic scientific research. This funding supports the crucial first step in life sciences investment through discovery and understanding of human biology and physiology. Pennsylvania research institutions and small companies received more than $2 billion in NIH funding in 2023 and, in many cases, hold contractual agreements with the NIH. This research also leads to spin-out companies and technology transfer that perpetuate the cycle of innovation in the Commonwealth. This cut threatens continued research and development in potential treatments and cures for patients

Contacted:HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Copyright/Patent/TrademarkView all

Strong intellectual property protections are the foundation for innovation in the life sciences. The U.S. patent system, though now ranked 12th worldwide by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, maintains important protections for companies researching and developing new medicines and technologies. These protections are especially important for the many small life sciences companies that call Pennsylvania home, and for the technology transfer offices that many of our academic institutions operate to move inventions from the lab to widely available treatments and cures for patients. The University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act Of 1980, more commonly called the Bayh-Dole Act, provides recipients of federal research funding the right to retain ownership of the inventions that were conceived or first actually reduced to practice under their federal funding agreements. Intended to promote utilization of inventions arising from federally supported R&D and increase the number of inventions that progressed from the laboratories into the marketplace. Four decades on, changes to these policies would dramatically disrupt the already fragile ecosystem of academic research institutions, industry partners as well as private investment into treatments that have the potential to extend life expectancy in patients. This does not accurately account for the significant time and resources private investment organizations and companies make to research and develop safe, effective, and usable medicines. Life Sciences Pennsylvania and the academic research institutions as well as R&D based companies that call Pennsylvania home, understand the importance of the strong intellectual property protections that we have in the U.S. Exercising march-in rights will significantly disrupt an innovation ecosystem that already faces challenging odds developing novel therapies and technologies for unmet medical needs. Life Sciences Pennsylvania joins the Partnership for the U.S. Life Science Ecosystem (PULSE) in sharing the unique nature of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) within our membership. To successfully bring cutting edge breakthroughs from bench to bedside-from the earliest NIH funded research in the academic setting through large scale manufacturing, mergers and acquisitions are a cornerstone of the American success of innovation. DOJ and FTC regulatory changes should be nuanced in this space.

Contacted:HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE